Austin Sports Guy

While the carousel of coaches continue to turn in college football, there is one constant figure that patrols the sidelines, Joe Paterno.  Born in Brooklyn,  New York in 1926,  Paterno attended Brown University where he played football as well as basketball prior to his 1950 graduation.  Upon graduation,  he accepted a job as an assistant football coach at Penn State.  After a 15 year stint working with Hall of Fame coach Rip Engle,  JoePa took over as head coach in 1966 and hasn’t looked back.  In his 59 years of coaching at Penn State, he holds college football records for longest tenure at a school as a coach(59) and as a head coach(43).  During this amazing run,  Paterno has the great distinction of having more wins(383) than any other Division 1 FBS coach, more bowl games won(23) as well as most undefeated seasons(5).

However,  these honors have not come without their criticisms.  Between 2000 and 2004, the Nittany Lions posted a 26-33 record having many of Penn States alumni and boosters calling for his retirement.  Before the 2005 season started, JoePa announced that if he team didn’t play well and win football games, he would consider retirement.  Needless to say, the Nittany Lions went 11-1 and won the Orange Bowl over the Florida State Seminoles and Bobby Bowden in triple overtime.   Since the 2004 campaign,  Penn State has compiled an impressive 40-10 record and has won 3 straight bowl games and this season has been invited to the 2009 Rose Bowl to take on USC.

As of today,  Joe Paterno’s contract, which pays him a meager $512,644 per year, has been extended another 3 years until 2011 when he will be a sprite 85 years young.  All colleges with sports programs should take note that you need to give your coaching staffs some time in order to recruit and develop talent so that you may be competitive for years to come, not just right now.  While there have been over 20 vacancies in the Div. 1 FBS this year alone, Joe Paterno has managed to be on the sideline for Penn State for 59 years with another 3 to go, still recruiting and still building to maintain the program.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.